The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [100]
“Tired?”
His asking made me realize that I was. “Hell, yes, I could use a little snooze right now.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Just kidding.”
Mason jumped down from the rock to the trail. I felt obligated to do the same. My hiking boots had no spring in them. I hit the dirt trail hard.
We started off again. For a while thick trees on either side blocked our view of anything beyond them. Where there were breaks in the trees, we could see dark clouds gathering behind the peaks. “Let’s hope we get up there before it rains. It almost always rains in the afternoon at this time of year. Thunderstorms, sometimes. They say if it’s going to storm, stay below the tree line.”
Why are we doing this if it’s going to rain? I bit back the words. It was my fault. Mason would have settled for the noonie. The after-noonie. He was getting ahead of me. My boots weighed me down, made me sluggish and slow.
Not ten minutes after our stop for water, I was thirsty again. Still walking, I took a swig from my canteen. Moving while drinking was a bad idea. It added to my shortness of breath but failed to satisfy my thirst. My mouth stayed dry. I didn’t like this.
A laughing couple passed, coming down the trail. Descending toward the shush of the Laramie River, soon they’d be dipping cupped hands into the clear water, marveling at each oval rock highlighted on the riverbed underneath. No one would believe anything toxic could grow in such clear water. It would taste cool, delicious. False.
What a thought!
I concentrated on rocks embedded in the packed dirt of the trail. The pale leaves of aspen trees, their white trunks. The sound of my own breath. Anything except the dryness in my mouth.
As we’d expected, the temperature kept dropping as we moved higher. I would have liked to stop to put my sweatshirt on and drink more water, but Mason was walking fast, light, in those damned running shoes.
We came to another shallow stream. Above the water, the air shivered. Mason barely glanced back at me before starting across, balancing on the flat, wet rocks. Once, his insubstantial shoe began to slip, and I was glad of it—glad!—but he caught himself. My clunky boots held to the rocks like magnets. On the other side, we waved to a Scout troop that had pitched tents and built a fire. A corner of a red plaid flannel sleeping bag protruded from one of the tents, a reminder of warm blankets, deep breaths, ordinary comforts.
Mason walked so fast, we might have been in a race. Maybe this was what my mother meant by Olympic marathons. I wasn’t just winded anymore; now I was also sick to my stomach. I was light-headed. My nose was running. When I wiped it with my fingers, they came away red. I’d never had a nosebleed in my life. Rubbing the blood onto my shirt, I fought down nausea and made myself move faster, determined that if Mason expected me to compete in a marathon, at least he should see this. Dappled light fell onto the path with the movement of the clouds. From the distance came the rumble of thunder.
Mason turned to face me as I got close. “Doing okay?”
“Fine.” He showed no alarm that I was hemorrhaging. Showed no sign of noticing at all. We’d been on the trail—how long? Over an hour. Two? He was the one with the watch. I squinted at the sky, trying to assess the angle of the sun. I was still on Eastern time, confused by the foreign pattern of clouds and brightness.
My hiking boots were heavier than they’d been at sea level. My nose kept dripping, but not enough to make an issue of it. Mason had no idea! My stomach roiled. My hands began to tingle. Maybe I was having a stroke! Any minute I was going to throw up.
Abruptly, Mason stopped. He froze and stared at something in front of him. Sick as I was, I caught up. Ahead of where he stood, the trail was gone. Instead, there stretched a huge, steep clearing completely covered by downed trees. Mason shook his head. “This is remarkable. An avalanche must have come through.”
Before us lay a forest of slender, whitish trunks, not aspen trees but some kind of fir. Every tree for